Rothbardian Principles

[Cantih]

^
A 100% regulated market produces poor results.
A 100% unregulated market produces poor results. (Unless you have one hell of a big dick to wave around.)

[archibaldcrane]

Regulations exist (environmental, anti-trust, etc.) because of the failure of 100% free markets to provide what democratic society desires. An ideological purist like Rothbard may argue that society SHOULD desire complete freedom from governmental pressure above all else, but simply put that's not what most people desire - therefore regulations on the free market exist.

[Kuya]

So am I right that free market economics don't work in reality? Or is free market only possible in anarchist societies?

It's a matter of priorities. For whatever reason that may be, free market thinkers believe maximizing freedom leads to ultimately better outcomes for society. Other people might give more weight to issues of how wealth is distributed and what a fair distribution of wealth should look like.

[archibaldcrane]

It's a matter of priorities. For whatever reason that may be, free market thinkers believe maximizing freedom leads to ultimately better outcomes for society. Other people might give more weight to issues of how wealth is distributed and what a fair distribution of wealth should look like.

Or that one person's definition of freedom is to be able to create as much toxic pollution as possible, and another person's definition would be to be free to breathe clean air.

A Rothbardian would argue that with perfect information distribution consumers would know which producers pollute and buy their products accordingly, leaving a local externality like pollution up to market forces as well.

of course that's a completely unrealistic position to take

[kuronosan]

Or that one person's definition of freedom is to be able to create as much toxic pollution as possible, and another person's definition would be to be free to breathe clean air.

A Rothbardian would argue that with perfect information distribution consumers would know which producers pollute and buy their products accordingly, leaving a local externality like pollution up to market forces as well.

of course that's a completely unrealistic position to take

You see, that's the stance I was taking. Humans, at some stage, will always want more for them and less for others... to prevent this some measure of regulation is needed.

This all started because I identify myself as Progressive, and was labeled as liberal instead. I've seen this argument hundreds of other times, and based on how well I understand human psychology I can't bring myself to believe a Rothbardian economy is possible.

[notorious bum]

It's more fun playing empire, consolidating power, and extracting wealth. That's the beauty of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Why, doing anything else would be to go against modern human history.

"The belief in markets is a religious belief. Rationally, we know of all kinds of fundamental, what are called, “inefficiencies” in markets. But the belief that they can solve everything and that everything can have a value determined by the market, I think you can regard that as a religious belief. The other day I happened to be reading a careful, interesting account of the state of British higher education. The government is a kind of market-oriented government and they came out with an official paper, a “White Paper” saying that it is not the responsibility of the state to support any institution that can’t survive in the market. So, if Oxford is teaching philosophy, the arts, Greek history, medieval history, and so on, and they can’t sell it on the market, why should they be supported? Because life consists only of what you can sell in the market and get back, nothing else. That is a real pathology."

--Noam Chomsky

[Quicklet]

Perhaps it just turns out that truly free markets work best when population densities, individual productivity (i.e. technological level), and raw resource availability mix such that there's a low barrier to entrepreneurship and there's a low concentration of economy such that local industry and production have an advantage over a concentrated global distribution. I have not had time to do much economics reading in a long time, but it would not surprise me if economies reflect more upon the psychological and sociological conditions of a country moreso than most people would be led to believe. The concept of anarcho-capitalism breaks down once an economy relies too much on shared or limited resources and there's not enough room for people to seek out more of a resource to meet demand.

[BaneTheBrawler]

i.e. it only works in star trek

[Quicklet]

Actually I would expect capitalism to be obsolete in that case.

[BaneTheBrawler]

i bet you three bars of gold pressed latinum it's not

[Ashmada]

You know what, Kuro? If he wants you to read Rothbard, get him to read Zola. Germinal to be precise.
No economic theories, just a simple example of what the result of completely unregulated free markets are.

If he's a holocaust denier he's a moron, but the bold part isn't exactly some crackpot theory - literally dozens of papers have been published investigating whether or not people of different races tend to be more or less intelligent (controlling for as many socioeconomic variables as possible, and using the least biased testing methods that people could devise), and blacks were consistently one standard deviation (give or take) lower than other groups. You can argue that more investigation needs done, and I'd agree with that, but right now the evidence is pointing that way. It doesn't mean it'll always be true (because evolution), but it does appear to be true at the moment.

Good luck if you do try to get people to do more research though. Even if people honestly aren't racist, and they do their damnedest to remove every trace of bias from testing methods, and their study is scientifically flawless, if the results end up consistent with previous research, they'll be labeled racists.

To my knowledge, all such studies have been done a long time ago by people that have since admitted to cooking the books.

You'll have to give me mighty evidence before I can buy that blacks be dumber.

[ringthree]

Economists are Meteorologists but instead of a frowny face storm its a frowny face $$, they bullshit you about things they can't predict 100% and then tell you "Well actually I was right because....".

Meteorologists knowingly take incomplete data to try to provide forecasts about something they know can inherently change. The problem is not with meteorologists, but with the people that don't understand percentage chance, which is quite a bit of the general public.

[kuronosan]

Meteorologists knowingly take incomplete data to try to provide forecasts about something they know can inherently change. The problem is not with meteorologists, but with the people that don't understand percentage chance, which is quite a bit of the general public.

Which is why they say 100% chance!

[Moridam]

i am pretty sure that rothbard supported the idea of child markets. you know, markets in which children can be bought and sold

[notorious bum]

Rothbard discussion is most likely only being brought up because of the new Koch film that talks about their humble beginnings. This guy is like one of those trendy tea party fucks who catch a few soundbites of the ideology and jump right on board the crazy train. He's one of those socially-awkward white guys, isn't he?

[kuronosan]

Rothbard discussion is most likely only being brought up because of the new Koch film that talks about their humble beginnings. This guy is like one of those trendy tea party fucks who catch a few soundbites of the ideology and jump right on board the crazy train. He's one of those socially-awkward white guys, isn't he?

How'd you know?

[archibaldcrane]

There's a Koch film that talks about their humble beginnings?

Oh, they must mean their father, the guy who made all the money.

[notorious bum]

How'd you know?

Because Rothbardian bullshit is ancient doo-doo that is resurfacing as a topic of discussion, the same way most things do in this social media muppet age: following trends. Obviously I'm just assuming I know the guy, but who gives a shit when his own ideology is unpopular with the fucking Koch Bros? lol

edit: couldn't dig the more in-depth article, but here's some Koch history storytime: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/06/libe..._charles_koch/

[Drex]

Typical economist starts with the conclusion they want, mines data to support it, then spends 500 pages building a model that completely fails to predict reality but fits the backtested data nicely and is very "robust". Nobel.